Episode 260: Many More Listener Emails, and Our Answers to Them
Date August 7, 2013 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about the best free agents available, expanded rosters, a world without Tommy John surgery, and more. Topics * All free agent team * Expanded rosters * Player paycheck logistics * Baseball assumptions * Defensive indifference & hidden-ball trick * Banning Tommy John surgery Intro The Kinks, "Cricket" Banter * A listener has created a Facebook group for the podcast. * Episode 251 follow-up: more past baseball events that would be bigger stories today. Email Questions * Matthew: "Am I the only one who thinks WikiLeaks every time somebody says Rickie Weeks?...You could build a pretty functional, old and injury prone, but functional team out of this coming offseason's free agent pool. Consider names like McCann, Pierzynski, Ruiz, Napoli, Morneau, Ellsbury, Cruz, Beltran, Berkman, Garza, Josh Johnson, Lincecum, etc. There's a whole team there! I don't have a question but how many of these characters do the Yankees sign and why not just buy all of them?" * Jim: "If Major League Baseball were to increase roster size from 25 to 30 players per team how many of the extra five would be pitchers and how many would be hitters?" * John: "I have a question about when teams pick up or eat salary in trades, let's use Alfonso Soriano. When next season rolls around is Alfonso Soriano going to actually be on the Cubs' payroll and receive a paycheck signed by Tom Ricketts twice a month along with a Yankee paycheck? Or do the Cubs just cut the Yankees a $13 million check on July 26th. That brings up my hypothetical question, could the Mets somehow trade off the Bonilla $1 million/year until 2035 contract to someone. How would that work? Would the payroll totally transfer over? I assume they couldn't just cut a check this year because of inflation and things like that...stops reading email." * Aaron: "So there's a few situations in baseball where it seems it might be a potential benefit in taking advantage of the opposition's assumptions. The situation I think about most is the automatic start that runners get on 3-2 with 2 outs. Now I know in theory that they only start once they see the pitcher going to the plate, but especially if a few pitches get fouled off and everyone has to keep resetting it looks like the runner can get pretty lazy and doesn't pay that much attention to exactly what the pitcher is up to. Is there a time when a pitcher might try to pick off the runner at first if he jumps his start too soon? I could be completely wrong but I don't think I've ever seen this happen. Would this be frowned upon and called poor form? Would this not be allowed for some reason? Would the pitcher just not want to waste mental energy on this?" * Michael: "I think there's an argument to be had that if certain substances determined to be performance enhancing are banned so should taking a ligament from your leg and putting it in your elbow and it got me to wondering, what if Major League Baseball banned Tommy John surgery tomorrow? Would pitchers just pitch through UCL tears or would teams just ride an arm until it blew out and then toss it aside?" Notes * Ben was active in the Facebook group from the start. Sam attributes his absence to not being able to access his account. He never went on to participate in the group but would admit to lurking. * Sam highlights players fighting in World War II as what he thinks would be the biggest story today from baseball's past. * Ben thinks an all-free agent team would win 85 games. Sam says 92. * The team that trades for a player pays their salary. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 260: Many More Listener Emails, and Our Answers to Them * Effectively Wild Facebook Group Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes